Josh dreams of dragons.
He thinks it's just a welcome escape from everyday life. Until one morning, he wakes up with scales, wings, and a tail.
Josh faces a harsh new reality: he has become something that shouldn't exist outside the pages of his fan...
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The silence was a sharp blade, soundlessly slicing into my flesh, igniting agony and choking my breath in my lungs. The sky was acutely blue and distant, the mountain above stoic and aloof. It was a silence that drew everything into itself, a vacuum, a singularity. And then it was shattered.
Stolvir's cry reached my athka before my ears. His legs gave way and he crumpled in the grass. All around me, stunned dragons on all sides looked on, helpless and confused. My mouth was dry, and my tongue was like sandpaper. No words or breath could escape my chest.
Rofar found his voice first. "What is the meaning of this?" he cried. "He offered to surrender. I...I don't—"
"Enough!" the white dragon thundered. Runes still dazzled on his scales, white and brilliant. "I do not accept surrender from him or his kind. His mere existence was an abomination, as are all these false dragons that curse our world."
Eysri's athka betrayed her shock, something I never thought I would see from the shaman who always seemed to know everything. She stepped in front of me, her deep voice quavering. "You don't mean to say...?"
"Dragon blood will be pure," Uldor bellowed, "or it will be spilled. I have had enough of these humans who conspire to walk among us and sow discord and poison. I had hoped that this treacherous flame would burn itself out, but if I must purify our kind with more...direct methods, so be it."
Clamoring voices began to ring out as chaos swept over both the Vrost as well as the clan dragons. I saw Rofar looking around in a panic. A brush of his spirit confirmed that he was frantically searching for his mate.
Uldor was prepared for the spreading mayhem. "Warriors!" he roared. "To me!" Brilyk and a few dozen other trained fighters closed in around the leader. "You know what to do," he said with cold finality.
The white dragon's black eyes fixed on me and narrowed predatorily. My heart pounded and my muscles tensed. The whole world faded into a blur except for those eyes. He would do to me exactly what he did to Ares. To him, I was nothing more than a contaminant, a dangerous aberration to be eradicated.
Eysri snapped me out of my daze by sending a cold spike of clarity into my athka. She had no intention of abetting Uldor's plan. Golden runes danced with light across her black hide. She slammed a forepaw into the earth, and thick, gray mist appeared in the air all around us, obscuring the white dragon and his retinue.
"Run!"
The shaman's order cut through the confusion. I obeyed, turning to sprint away from Uldor. Unrecognizable shapes were sliding in and out of sight in the fog. On one side I glimpsed pale lilac scales. Tenaya ran slightly ahead and looked back at me, eyes wide with fright.
Uldor's bellowing roar reached deep inside me, awakening buried fears. I stopped, looking around in a panic. Where are Alex and Scott?
I couldn't see anything. Calling out to them was impossible amidst the sounds of fighting all around me, and they had no athkan I could sense. A tiny, rational part of me screamed for me to get away. Tenaya felt the same way; she flooded my athka with an impatient command to keep running, almost like a mental slap in the face.
